Ignite Your Digital Transformation

If no one came to work on Monday, how much would your organization lose in profit that day? What about a week? An entire month? You may not realize it, but many organizations are losing as many as 35 days per year to unproductive activity from their workforce.

Improving employee productivity has become one of the top business issues that many companies are facing. Executives, managers, and business owners are always looking to get more out of their employees. They have to be. Organizations are expected to move and respond to market changes faster than the day before. In order to do this, a workforce needs to be highly engaged and productive.

However, a third of today’s workforce has reported feeling disengaged. 86% of these disengaged employees say their work environment does not allow them to choose where to work within the office, based on the task they are doing. Background noise, work style difference, insufficient tools, and poor workplaces disrupt employee communications and collaboration.

The Reality of Today’s Workforce

No matter what industry you are in, computerization is the reason your workforce has dramatically changed in the last three decades. Knowledge workers have increased as much as 65% in developed countries. These are the people who are solving complex problems to keep your company competitive. This is how organizations can adapt to the radical transformation in the workplace that we are experiencing.

CEOs are responding to this change in the workplace with a digital transformation strategy. Introducing digital solutions is helping to solve for many of the problems that are keeping CEOs up at night. 70% of CEOs are concerned about the rapid pace of tech changes. 66% are trying to keep up with changing customer demands and behaviors, and 58% are competing against new market entrants.

The executives that are sleeping soundly know that the secret to solving problems is creativity. They know that problem-solving is the most important skill set for a workforce today.

The Creative Side of Digital Transformation

In order to problem-solve, people need to innovate and think outside of the box. It’s no longer about a top-down policy for organizations – rather, a switch in focus on fostering people’s creativity.

Creative work requires individuals to deeply immerse themselves in a task. This allows imagination and productivity to flourish. There’s nothing better when you’re ‘in the zone’ and can power through tasks and problems successfully. But getting into ‘the zone’ doesn’t always happen when you sit down at your desk between meetings.

For me, sometimes I find myself in the zone at 1 am. I’d prefer to be sleeping, but my creative outputs have value. For some people, getting into the zone happens while they are at lunch. When this happens, the thoughts and solutions need to documented properly. People need to be connected at this time. The ability to be both creative and connective are necessary for success and productivity. This is why digital transformation needs to be top of mind for organizations.

The Three Agents of Change

Knowledge workers need three simple problems solved for them from business owners and executives in order to increase their productivity. We call these agents of change and they are as follows:

1. Solving for complexity

Innovation is pivotal to solve the complexities that organizations are facing. But your workforce isn’t going to have a breakthrough in silos. They happen when teams are face to face with the challenges confronting the company and its customers.

2. Engaging nomadic workers

We need versatility in our day today! We want personalized tools that allow us to maintain our workflow from anywhere to jumpstart creativity. Whether that’s access to tools at 1 am, in the airport, or in an Uber. We want to stay highly engaged when we find ourselves ‘in the zone.’

3. Shifting from me to we

Creative collaboration is at the heart of any modern day innovation. Work is no longer linear or individualized. Executives have found that when employees can easily collaborate from anywhere there is a 48% increase in innovation. And attraction and retention of top talent increase by 48%.

All three of these agents of change have one common element – mobility. Embracing mobility is key if you want your people to do creative work from the location of their choosing. An effective mobility strategy must encompass many things. The management culture must empower employees to make decisions about where and when they do their creative work. Policies must be created and enforced so, for example, teams can come together regularly. It’s also about people having the right tools in their possession as they move in and out of creative and connective work modes

As workplace complexity, mobility, and collaboration grow these agents of change help to jump-start transformation. Ignite your workforce’s true creative potential, and build valuable interaction with your customers through tools that are specifically designed to help them collaborate and create.

Advanced collaboration tools will be indispensable in the coming years. Work is more collaborative and remote than ever, and that trend is continuing. 72% of workers will be working remotely by 2020, and 80% of employee time is currently spent collaborating.

This is part two in a series about my experience at Cisco Partner Summit 2018. Part one reviewed the evolution of Cisco’s networking products and inspirational brand campaign. In this installment, we’ll cover how Cisco is revolutionizing the huddle room and the individual customer experience.

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